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aspergers and gender dysmorphia

markjulips

Hi - I have a 31year old son whom I think may have a mild form Aspergers but has never been diagnosed as it never entered our heads before my neice started having "problems" with her young son and he was diagnosed with autism (which made us do a lot of reading and research with her).  My son has an extremely high IQ and always been good at mathematics and computer programming and has always had obsessions in the past which have always fizzled out when he finds another.  He finds it extremely difficult to make friends, keep a job and has always had relationships with girls but when they end he gets depressed and suicidal.

Last year he revealed he has gender dysmorphia since having counselling sessions after when a psychologist suggested his failed relationships could be because he feels uncomfortable in his male role and I am concerned that this may be yet another obsession which will be irreversible if he does become a woman.  He has now been gioven the go-ahead to take hormones after 4 hours of specialist couselling and 1 seesion with a specialist psychiatrist.

Have any other parents been through this sort of thing or do they think I am just clutching at straws and just watch him go ahead?

Parents
  • Former Member
    Former Member

    First off, can I be pedantic and suggest that this thread is about Gender Dysphoria rather than dysmorphia? Gender Dysmorphia is the opposite of Gender Euphoria and it means unhappiness with ones gender.

    My opinions follow - this is an area where the facts are often unclear and people will beligerantly state things as fact when the truth is much more subtle. Autistic people often state things beligerantly because we are not good at stating them diplomatically!

    Undiagnosed autistic people are often deeply unhappy and dissatisfied with life. We fail to engage happily in society as we often fail to communicate diplomatically. Depression and anxiety are endemic among autistic people. It has also been observed that LGBT tendencies are also more prevalent in the autistic community than in the general population.

    We also think differently.

    I do not know, but I have a suspicion that, people seek a cause for the unhappiness and some people identify that they could have the 'wrong' gender and this could explain their unhappiness. They find the LGBT community as a place that accepts difference and it provides legitimacy for that explanation.

    I suspect that people who have been identified as autistic and who have come to terms with that difference, and all that it means, are less likely to have gender dysphoria.

    There is one complication and that is that a female who has autistic thinking patterns may identify the similarities between autistic thinking and male thinking. Autistic people are more often blunt, logical, less emotional (more Spock like) and this can appear to suggest that this is male based but in fact it is not gender based thought processes.

    In summary, I think that people should come to terms with their autism first (autism is a much more definitive thing than gender identity in my opinion) before trying to work out what gender they should identify as.

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  • Former Member
    Former Member

    First off, can I be pedantic and suggest that this thread is about Gender Dysphoria rather than dysmorphia? Gender Dysmorphia is the opposite of Gender Euphoria and it means unhappiness with ones gender.

    My opinions follow - this is an area where the facts are often unclear and people will beligerantly state things as fact when the truth is much more subtle. Autistic people often state things beligerantly because we are not good at stating them diplomatically!

    Undiagnosed autistic people are often deeply unhappy and dissatisfied with life. We fail to engage happily in society as we often fail to communicate diplomatically. Depression and anxiety are endemic among autistic people. It has also been observed that LGBT tendencies are also more prevalent in the autistic community than in the general population.

    We also think differently.

    I do not know, but I have a suspicion that, people seek a cause for the unhappiness and some people identify that they could have the 'wrong' gender and this could explain their unhappiness. They find the LGBT community as a place that accepts difference and it provides legitimacy for that explanation.

    I suspect that people who have been identified as autistic and who have come to terms with that difference, and all that it means, are less likely to have gender dysphoria.

    There is one complication and that is that a female who has autistic thinking patterns may identify the similarities between autistic thinking and male thinking. Autistic people are more often blunt, logical, less emotional (more Spock like) and this can appear to suggest that this is male based but in fact it is not gender based thought processes.

    In summary, I think that people should come to terms with their autism first (autism is a much more definitive thing than gender identity in my opinion) before trying to work out what gender they should identify as.

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